The increase in the amount of data stored on digital computing systems has resulted in complex storage systems. One method for organizing data has been to store them in electronic files. These files are then grouped into directories with some directories including other directories and/or files. Typically, files and directories are assigned unique identifiers within the file system. In most systems, files and directories are arranged in order to optimize the lookup of a unique identifier given the particular path or name of the file or directory.
In some circumstances, it may be desirable to provide a file system that may be accessed by client processes using multiple different character encodings. It can be problematic to provide a file system that supports access to filenames created with multiple different character encodings. Because of the foregoing challenges and limitations, there is a need to provide a file system that supports access to files named with multiple different character encodings.